Question about American Studies

[GunterFan]

I did my undergrad in anthropology and Classics, and currently have an MA in (the albeit nebulous) field of the social sciences (from UChicago courtesy of the MAPSS program). A lot of (if not most of) what I have researched has concerned contemporary American culture, specifically popular culture. As of right now, I'm interested in pursuing an American Studies PhD because the programs I've looked at seem to be amenable to the study of American pop culture, but I'm a little worried because I've never explicitly taken a traditional American Studies course. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions about what I should do/what programs I should look into?

Edited June 9, 2016 by GunterFan

[Sigaba]

I recommend the following.

• Do not use term "pop culture," even in the most casual and friendly circumstances.
• Start developing an understanding of the different meanings of popular culture with an eye towards how you'd answer the questions "What is popular culture?" and "Why American studies?" in the most important conversations of your personal and personal professional lives.
• Find hard copies of the field's relevant journals (start with Journal of American Studies and American Studies)
  • Read selectively through the last ten years or so.
    • Focus on articles that talk about the state of the art and terms of debate
    • Focus on reviews of the must read books.
  • Skim pretty much everything else.
• Programs to consider:
  • The University of Texas at Austin
  • Yale
  • Southern Cal
  • Harvard
  • University of Minnesota

Additional considerations. You may want to take a close look at the backgrounds of potential POIs. Do they approach American Studies as a social science or do they have backgrounds in the humanities? If it's more of the latter (which I suspect), you may end up having to grind the gears to get your motor in sync.

#HTH

 

[NoirFemme]

USC has a heavy focus on ethnic/critical race/gender/queer studies. And the program is more social science based as opposed to humanities. The anthro background would probably serve you well in this program.